


Waiting for the Cavarly

by Natasi (SwordDraconis113)



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Girls with Guns, Minor Violence, Present Tense, Science Fiction, Sisters, Space Colony, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-13
Updated: 2016-05-13
Packaged: 2018-06-08 03:33:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6837493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwordDraconis113/pseuds/Natasi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When their small space colony is under attack by slavers, Niska can only rely on her older sister, Ella, to protect her. However, when they get cornered trying to escape, Niska has to be the brave one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waiting for the Cavarly

**Author's Note:**

> For a class assessment. The title had been 'warriors', and I wanted to look at it from the point of view of a brave fighter, rather than an experienced soldier.
> 
> Some edits have been made since first posting.

Niska’s mother tackles her. Pulse-rifles blast against the wall raining shattered stone onto the pavement, spattered with blood. Pushing onto her knees, Niska stumbles into a run, knocking through the hysterical crowd. Over her shoulder, she calls back “Where’s Ella?” 

Through the cacophony, there’s no reply. Her steps slow, turning to search for her mother. She’s not close behind. 

Stopping, Niska searches between the stampede, catching glances of fallen brethren as men, women and children knock into her shoulder. From the other side of the road, a low, heavy laughter rumbles over the pulse-rifle blasts.

A shot flies high over her head and mortar casts down as she pushes back to run to her mother – stopped short as a hand grabs hers. Niska’s sister, Ella, pulls her back through the tidal wave of the crowd while all around them, the slavers shooting at the crowd. 

“But Mum!”

“We’ll go back.”

“No, we won’t, we-“

Ella stops and yanks her to her, hugging her sister as an explosion rockets from the town central. A wave of force slams them into a brick wall and takes the air out from their lungs. 

Niska’s chest heaves, her lungs grasping for air, as she gapes. The crying and screaming is now dulled by the explosion, leaving only a piercing whistle in her ears. Someone had thrown a grenade at the slaver.

She’s pulled to her feet as Ella grabs her. Air expands into her lungs as she allows herself to be dragged into the baker’s shop, through the broken glass door.

In a daze, Niska follows her sister, her eyes still burning from the explosion, feeling like bits of unknown organic matter are on her clothes, skin and hair.

Maybe it’s just dirt, but it feels wet on her cheeks.

The fires’ light flickers against broken glass on the floor. It crunches underneath their boots as Niska is led around the till. Fredrick, a young boy her age, lies dead, staring up at her with an oozing wound in the middle of his face.

Ella’s hand slaps over Niska’s mouth as she gasps before pushing her behind the storefront, into the back of the bakery. She closes the door behind them, locking it. Behind the door, Fredrick’s mother lies sobbing in the corner besides shelves of bread, her hands over her ears as she rocks herself.

“Mrs –“

“Leave her.” Ella hisses. She unholsters a pistol from her hip, aiming it in front of her with one hand, her other reaching down to clasp at Niska’s. 

“We should be trying to get to the shelter,” Niska whispers. “They’ll find us here.”

“No. They’re leading us to the shelters. They’re only shooting so people will panic and run.” 

“You’re wrong. The shelters protect us. We just have to get there before they do.”

“That’s the first place that –”

In front of them, boxes tip and fall behind rows of the bread. Niska jumps, both of her arms wrapping around Ella’s to cling to her. 

Ella gestures to Niska to walk slow. Their boots carefully crunching over breadcrumbs and linoleum as she drags her gun’s sight in front of her. Catching movement, she swings around a corner, with Niska still clinging to her, to point a gun at Fredrick’s father.

His hands throw up into the air, empty and shaking, as his lips splutter out, “P-please.”

“Where’s the exit?”

Shaking, he points over to his right, a hallway leading to the packing area in front of a closed door. The docking bay will be behind the roller door but Ella spies a single, emergency exit door, beside the roller one.

“Thank you,” Ella grunts, her hand relaxing to take Niska’s again.

She leads her towards the exit. Her eyes scan over the lightless room, over the wide, interior packing bay of the bakery, checking that it’s empty. Placing Niska behind the door’s hinges, she presses up against the door’s side and eases it open enough to slip the barrel of her pistol out. The door opens wider and her hand reaches back, taking Niska’s again to lead her.

“Quietly,” she whispers to her little sister.

Niska presses behind her, grasping her sister’s hand, and clutching at the lower spine of the jacket. Her steps shuffle behind Ella’s as they ease over the loading platform, where the ships back-up against to unload. There’s one ship there. Half unloaded and parked. No one seems to be inside.

“Ella?”

“We’re almost there,” she answers, looking around the docking bay. Straight forward is the main road, then the farmland. There’s a throng of tall plantation estimating at a two kilometre run away from them in the open, dark paddock. They could hide there, or they could risk getting blown up in the car. 

On either side of the docking bay, is a wall, one of the walls is the grocer’s backend that sits closer to the road. The other separates the baker’s from the chemist’s loading bay. A small, low-level red wall, only meant to mark the land for cargo ships.

Boots scuff against pavement, catching their attention, as a low voice mutters.

A slaver comes around the side of the docks, from the grocer’s backend, next door. His six eyes swung over to them before he lifts up his rifle. Ella fires twice and the slaver slumps to his knees, keeling over. The gunshots ring loudly, even over the muffled yelling and small explosions from the town.

Ella tugs at her sister and strides forward, down the ramp of the docking bay, to the wall side, where the slaver lies face down. Holstering her pistol, she kicks the slaver onto his back, pulling the rifle from him and pressing the butt of it her shoulder. 

A loud _boom_ comes from above, in the night sky. A ship can be seen, breaking through the atmosphere, coming towards the planet. 

“Is that the Alliance?” Niska asks. 

“Yeah,” Ella smiles. “It’s the cavarly.” 

A flicker of shadows grabs her attention. Beside the wall, extending long on the ground,  are slaver’s shadows coming from the store next door. “Run!” She pushes at her sister, before grasping at the rifle and turning around the corner to shoot.

Niska stumbles forward and then quickly turns back to grabs at the spine of her Ella’s jacket, burying her face in it as she hides and clings.

Ella grunts, firing at the incoming targets, before stepping behind the wall of the chemist, dragging her sister from her as she takes a deep breath

“Remember how to take off the safety?” she asks, pulling out her pistol to hand it to her sister.

Niska shakes her head.

“Liar.” She turns her sister, pointing to the paddocks. “Run, I’ll cover you. Get to the paddocks, wait for the cavalry to arrive, and then _get to their ship_.”

Niska’s hands shakes with the pistol as she turns it over, looking at the safety. 

“No!”

“On the count of three, okay?” 

“I won’t leave without you!”

“One of us has to stay to protect the other, okay?” Ella says, smiling. “I’m the oldest, so do as your told.”

“No!”

“One.”

“Please!”

“Two,” Ella counts, her smile slipping as she takes a deep breath, tensing.

“Ella, _don’t leave me_.”

“Three!” Ella spins out of cover, aiming her gun at the slavers and fires as she walks out in the open, diverting their attention wholly to her. Niska runs forward, but not towards the paddocks. Instead, she runs for the ship, tearing the door open and ducking inside. 

Climbing into the seat, her fingers flick over the switches, and pull out the handbrake. With two hands, she takes the ship’s steering handle and pushes it into gear. It shoots forward, flying past her sister, down the road where she turns the ship around to fly full force to the slavers. 

The force of the ship slams into them, skirting the ground with a loud complaint as only one slaver jumps out in time, before she lifts up into the air and turns around, slowing down to come to a midair stop next to her sister.

The engine’s loud noise calls attention to them, and more slavers come running around from both sides of the baker’s now.

“Get in!”

Ella fires her rifle, backing up  and then turns to grab the door.

Niska raises her own pistol, she takes aim and hits one. Two. They fire, a bullet hits – grazes – her shoulder and Niska nearly falls from her seat before the door’s shut and Ella’s inside.

“Drive! _Drive_!”

She pushes off, into the air, dragging the side of the ship into the wall and flies up high, out of reach, towards the paddock. 

“Good,” Ella says, patting Niska as they make it over the trees. “You did good.”

Niska exhales a breath, her eyes fluttering as she looks down at the damage down to the colony. The Alliance has arrived, a full squad team.

“They’re going to need help,” Niska whispers, looking over at Ella.

Ella nods. “Yeah, they are. Let’s go pick up some recruitments. It’s time to save our home.”


End file.
